Sayre RR8 IAR221

Modernity's Beginning

Europe in the 1720's, the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment finds its roots in roots. That is to say breakthroughs in agricultural methods gives an extra supply of food that in turn allows for explosions in population. Society changes in ways which were before non existent. Instead of funds for buildings being restricted to the wealthy aristocrats and merchants, stocks and corporations begun. Many more breakthroughs filtered through, including physics, chemistry, sanitation and most importantly, architecture.

The Barriere de la Villette in Paris, by Calude-Nicolas Ledoux is a perfect
example of the geometric appearance that is stressed by this period.
(Rotonda de la Villette)

Equality

Like the many periods of buildings the old becomes new. This period of Enlightenment combines the old ways with each other and finds itself the complete opposite of the flourish and expansive stretching of the eye that was the Baroque style. Simplicity and function is the new beauty and starts an extreme to geometric modernism, leaving no extra wasted materials to be found on these buildings. The image to the left, the Rotonda de la Villette, can be looked at as a neo-Villa Capra. Stripped of its antiquity decoration, as well as the use of stairs to raise the building, gives this building a very serious demeanor.

Jacques-Germain Soufflot was an architect of 1700's in Paris. Modernity brings with it a redoing of that which is old that can be seen in his famous Sainte-Genevieve, Paris. Roth quotes Laugier as the Sainte-Genevieve to be "the premier model of perfect architecture." Roth describes the building as a temple from antiquity turned inside out.

Front of the Sainte-Genevieve, Paris. Upholding old traditions of
Greek Antiquity.
Genevieve

The Sainte-Genevieve is an example which combines the greek form with that, again, of the Pantheon (which is racking up to be one of the most important buildings people look at). Four small domes surround the large one in the center in this cross shaped building. This building also holds on to the slightly flourished Corinthian columns.

Past modernity finds very interesting structures beginning to emerge in the minds of architects. Only in the mind do these buildings lie due to the inability of technique and strict ability to build them. Roth points out several prototypical and wonderfully wild buildings. For example "...this idealized monument to Newton (theoreticall impossible to build at that time) was a study in the expressive possibilities of pure geometry at enermous scale.

Cenotaph for Issac Newton. With thousands of planned holes to let light in, this
structure would represent the cosmological ideas Newton gave science.
Etienne-Louis Boullee

Other interesting structures emerged which display the beginnings of what was to come in modernism and making what is just an idea a tangible, physical object. In these buildings lived the idea of urban development that is praised today.